Week 6 Lecture 9 - personality and mental health

Question 1

What is diathesis (diathesis-stress model)?

Answer 1

an inherent vulnerability to develop an illness.

Question 2

What is stress (diathesis-stress model)?

Answer 2

increase the risk of developing an illness

Question 3

What are diathesis-stress models?

Answer 3

focus on an interaction of environmental and genetic factors (stress and diathesis) that leads to developing e.g., mental health illnesses

Question 4

True or false?

There are many potential relationships between diathesis and risk levels

Answer 4

True

relationships could be linear, exponential, step-change

Question 5

True or false?

Diathesis and stress effects are likely to be simply additive

Answer 5

False

Diathesis and stress effects unlikely to be simply additive

Question 6

Why is identifying personality diathesis difficult?

Answer 6

• There could be several diatheses per disorder
• There may be protective factors
• Diatheses may be differentially sensitive to certain types of (congruent) stressor –> the Specific Vulnerability Hypothesis (SVH)

Question 7

Name some non-personality diathesis linked to depression

Answer 7

• Female gender
• Relative with depression
• Death of parent in childhood
• Lack of social support

Question 8

Name some stressors linked to depression

Answer 8

Divorce, unemployment, physical illness

Question 9

Name 4 personality diathesis that have been extensively researched and linked to depression

Answer 9

• high autonomy
• high dependency
• self-critical personality style
• pessimistic explanatory style

Question 10

What is high autonomy?

Answer 10

• “compulsive self-reliance”
• aversion to being controlled by/ dependent on others

Question 11

What stressor would someone high in autonomy be sensitive to (SVH)?

Answer 11

• indicators of personal failure
• e.g., poor exam performance, failure to get a promotion

Question 12

What is a self-critical personality style?

Answer 12

• hold unreasonably high standards for self
• prone to punishing self-evaluations

Question 13

What stressor would someone with a self-critical personality style be sensitive to (SVH)?

Answer 13

• negative life events that they feel responsible for
• e.g., accidents or mistakes

Question 14

What is a pessimistic explanatory style?

Answer 14

• explain negative events according to stable and global causes
• feel unable to avoid negative events

Question 15

What stressor would someone with a pessimistic explanatory style be sensitive to (SVH)?

Answer 15

• negative life events that could be attributed to stable/global causes
• e.g., failure

Question 16

What is high dependency?

Answer 16

• “anxious attachment”
• exaggerated need for others’ guidance, nurturance and approval
• fears separation and abandonment

Question 17

What stressor would someone with high dependency be sensitive to (SVH)?

Answer 17

• events related to interpersonal conflict, loss, rejection and separation
• e.g., relationship break-up

Question 18

What are people with high autonomy and a self-critical personality style focussed on? What does this mean they are sensitive to?

Answer 18

• focussed on achievement
• sensitive to achievement-related stressful events

Question 19

What is someone with high dependency focussed on? What does this mean they are sensitive to?

Answer 19

• focussed on relationships
• sensitive to reltionship-based stressful events

Question 20

Is there evidence to support the Specific Vulnerability Hypothesis?

Answer 20

Abela et al. (2012):
- Mixed results in tests of this hypothesis

Three possible causes of inconsistencies:
- Little focus on other risk and protective factors (e.g. self-esteem).
- Too much focus on individual stress level relative to group –> idiographic approach would be better
- Researcher cannot classify stressful events for each individual (differences in interpretation, plus ‘spill over’ effects.)

Question 21

A study by Abela et al. (2012) tried to address the issues of the SVH previously highlighted

They recruited 140 children who had at least 1 parent with a history of depression and had them complete multiple measures at baseline and them followed up over a 1 year period (every 6 weeks via phone interviews)

The study focussed on dependency and self-criticalness

What did their analysis aim to determine?

Answer 21

• The ability of Dependency and Self-Crit to predict depression
• The effect of increased amount of total stress (not congruence).
• The role of self-esteem as a protective factor.

Question 22

A study by Abela et al. (2012) tried to address the issues of the SVH previously highlighted

They recruited 140 children who had at least 1 parent with a history of depression and had them complete multiple measures at baseline and them followed up over a 1 year period (every 6 weeks via phone interviews)

The study focussed on dependency and self-criticalness

What did they find?

Answer 22

• No evidence that self-criticism acts as a diathesis.
• Diathesis-stress effects apparent for Dependency.
• Dependency acts as a diathesis, but is buffered by protective effects of self-esteem.

Question 23

What studies show that Schizotypy confirms a vulnerability to Sz?

Answer 23

Kwapil et al. (2013):
- 534 undergrads took the Wisconsin Schizotypy Scales which broke schizotypy down into positive (e.g., perceptual aberration, magical ideation) and negative (physical and social anhedonia)

• positive and negative Schiz –> Sz-spectrum disorders
• positive Schiz –> mood and substance abuse
• negative Schiz –> Schizoid traits and lower reltionship closeness

Halsam (2009):
- looked at specific vulnerabilitis in Schiz (SVH)
- positive Schiz more vulnerable to chatic envs. e.g., abuse, neglect
- negative Schiz more vulnerable to birth complications e.g., physical, biological stressors

Question 24

High levels of Schizotypy have been linked to psychosis but what else have they been linked to?

Answer 24

creativity

Question 25

What evidence is there that schizotypy is linked to creativity?

Answer 25

Ando, Claridge & Clark (2014):

Online schizotypy scales completed by:
- Comedians (N=523)
- Actors (N=364)
- Compared with existing ‘normal’ groups.

• Actors and comedians scored higher than normal controls on most subscales.
• Comedians > actors for three subscales

Mason, Hort and Woo (2015):
- Online recruitment of 294 poets.
- Compared with existing ‘normal’ groups.

• 18.37% met diagnostic criteria for self-reported bipolar (cf population level: 3.7%)
• Highest levels of schizotypy for ‘avant-garde’ poets